The man who has given life to such beloved Muppet characters as Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Bert (on "Sesame Street"), Cookie Monster, Grover, and Animal has become a film director of note, with a number of popular comedies to his credit. Oz moved to California with his parents in the 1950s and began staging puppet shows when he was 12. He joined Jim Henson's staff of puppeteers seven years later and gradually became Henson's closest collaborator, on the landmark children's TV show "Sesame Street," "The Muppet Show," and the subsequent Muppet features The Muppet Movie (1979), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird (1985), and The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), in which he performed his familiar characters. Oz codirected the fantasy film The Dark Crystal (1983) with Henson and then soloed on the third Muppet movie, The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984). Ready to branch out beyond Muppetdom, he brought a keen eye (and sense of humor) to the stylized musical remake of Little Shop of Horrors (1986), which proved his mettle as a filmmaker. Since then he has directed the more conventional comedies Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), What About Bob? (1991), and HouseSitter (1992). (He was the original director of 1990's Mermaids but was replaced after filming began.) Oz has also taken cameo roles in a trio of John Landis movies: The Blues Brothers (1980), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and Trading Places (1983), but his most notable "performance" was as the Muppet-like Jedi master Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983).